Sony Corp (ADR) (NYSE:SNE) has offered the first look of its currently under work drone project. People shouldn’t get carried away as these drones are meant for business as well as enterprise usage and not for delivering gadgets.
This first prototype comes from Aerosense a joint venture between Sony and an automation specialist company ZMP from Japan. According to reports, the future models could carry around 22 pounds of weight. The drone will have the capacity to fly more than two hours at a time and have a top speed of around 106 km/hour.
The new Aerosense prototype (AS-DTO1-E) utilizes rotating turbines to enable vertical landing and takeoff. This means there’s no need of a landing strip. Hence, the drone can be utilized in parts such as jungles that have a scarcity of big and open spaces.
The Aerosense prototype AS-MCO1-P is a quadcopter also displayed by the organization. It is quite small and light when compared to the other drone prototype. It comes with GPS (Global Positioning System), navigation system, and a camera. The two different drones are likely to be utilized for different purposes.
Aerosense is trying to automate some of the processes handled currently by humans including inspection, observation, surveying and measurement. Taking into account the rising demand, Chief of Aerosense, Hisashi Taniguchi predicts that the organizations’ revenue will touch $82 million by the year 2024.
Currently, many tech giants are striving to enter the drone business. Organizations such as Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN), Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) and Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) are testing drones. Virginia Tech held an FAA-authorized trial last week where it delivered medicine utilizing a drone.
Sony intends to focus on enterprise customers currently, deploying its telecommunication, camera as well as robotic technologies to obtain aerial imagery to be processed by the cloud. Aerosense will operate from Tokyo and looks to introduce services beginning at the start of 2016. Aerosense’s drones will conduct land as well as aerial infrastructure surveys.
Sources: theverge, mytechbits
